


A War Story is a Black Space

by bloodofpyke



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 16:14:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodofpyke/pseuds/bloodofpyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the war, after Arya's made her way back home to Westeros</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was afterwards, of course, the next time he saw her again. The ropes had been taken down, but he thought he could still hear the creaking; the air was filled with softer scents, warmer scents, but he could still detect the burn of blood underneath it all; and the ruins had all been rebuilt, but sometimes the sun threw the shadows into relief and he was back, back in the war.

If he had blinked, he would have missed her; she was taller now, and harder somehow, hair pulled back and hand resting on the hilt of a sword. The hammer dropped from his hand onto the ground, but he barely took any notice. _“Arya,”_ he whispered, then “Arya!” louder, louder, until the ground seemed to shake from the sound of it, from the _wanting_ of it.

She didn’t answer, only looked at him a moment longer before turning and walking away.

***

_The war is over,_ she thought as she picked her way over roads, over hobbled paths, breathing in the air she didn’t remember anymore. She looked around, at the flowers dotting the fields, at the boats making their way lazily up the river, at the riders sharing food, but she didn’t see any of it. She saw corpses where the flowers should be, saw fires and debris in place of the boats, saw freshly dug graves instead of the riders.

She walked until her bones seemed to shake in her skin, until she could almost feel something rattle in her chest. _Stupid,_ she told herself. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. Your heart’s gone for true by now._ She kept walking along the river, eyes closed against the world, until she heard the song of steel.

_Gendry,_ she thought at first. Then, _no, it’s been too long, he wouldn’t still be here, he’s probably dead like everyone else._ She moved towards the sound, thinking _everyone died, in the end._ She closed her eyes, but the tears did not come; she had used them all up long ago. She saw him a moment later, truly a man grown now, black hair long and shaggy, the hammer almost a part of his arm. _Gendry._ The word felt strange, foreign almost, and she didn’t know what to do with it, so she just stood and watched.

He looked up, though, and saw her. His mouth moved once, then he paused and shouted “Arya!” for all the world to hear, and then she was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

She came back over the next few days, sticking to the shadows under the trees and stones, the filtered sunlight glinting off her grey eyes. She stuck to the shadows, invisible but for her eyes, watching him like an animal, like a wolf. _Like Nymeria,_ she thought fiercely, balling her hands into fists, fingernails digging into her palms. If she tried, she could still feel the weight of the rocks in her hands, could still feel her arms shaking when she threw them, but the memories were growing fainter, and it almost seemed like they had happened to another girl.

Hey eyes fell shut and she tried to call back the memories: the castle, warm even when the snow fell; the feel of a snowball in her hand, launching it at someone, a sister; the feeling of family, of being safe (it felt warm, she thought, but _inside,_ where it counted). Her eyes opened to a hammer at her feet, a tall shape looming over her.

“You’re back,” he said, his voice deeper, rougher. _A man grown,_ she thought again. And suddenly she was whirling away, sword in hand, sliding and spinning. _“Arya,”_ he said, and it sounded like he was biting back a grin.

 _You left._ She stepped forward, slashing at his chest, his face. He faltered, and the blade missed him by a hair. His eyes met hers, and he was _afraid._ _Fear cuts deeper than swords,_ she thought suddenly, still pressing him, sword still swinging. His mouth opened and he breathed a single word. _“Arya,”_ he said again, so faint she almost didn’t hear.

“You _left!”_ she shouted as she advanced, fingers gripping the hilt so tightly they were like to grow brittle and snap off. “You were my _pack_ and you _left!”_ The words were pouring out of her now, raw and angry, ripped from her throat. “You _left,_ and I _trusted_ you!” She kept slashing, kept missing. _“Everyone_ left, and you were part of my _pack,_ you and Hot Pie both, and you _left!”_

The sword clattered from her hand, falling down onto the fresh earth, the sunlight gleaming off it like it was made of fire itself and she fell with it, hands balling back into fists, jaw clenched, tears running hot down her face. “You _left,”_ she said again, the words somewhere between a sob and a growl.


	3. Chapter 3

She was asleep, hands grasping at her chest _(stupid,_ she had thought before she drifted off, _there’s nothing in there, not anymore)_ and her sword carefully laid at her side. She fell into a wolf dream, hard, but it was _different,_ and she could taste something at the back of her throat. _Fear cuts deeper than swords,_ she told herself, the last thing she remembered thinking before she slid into the dream.

***

She was strong, always strong, in her dreams, muscles taunt and ready to spring, eyes bright and searching. Her lips were bared, and the wind hit her teeth, slipped between the cracks of her snarl, and she shivered, the cold pricking at her fur. _Winter is coming,_ the girl thought somewhere, and the wolf shivered again at the words.

The wolf turned and ran, ran hard and fast, trying to escape the cold, trying to escape whatever it brought with it. It was night, but the sky was angry; reds and purples swirled above her, and the stars weren’t stars, but pinpricks in the fabric, holes the cold could get through. The moon was hidden, but it made no difference; the wolf’s eyes were sure, and she bounded along the river, ignoring the noises that were screaming all around her. _But the war is over,_ the girl thought again, her voice dragged out in the wolf, the smallest of whispers until it might never have been said at all.

Still the wolf ran, her brothers gathering themselves behind her, falling into step with her, matching her stride for stride. Her eyes glowed under the moonless sky and her fur stood on end as she skidded to a stop, a growl starting low in her throat. A man stood over her, hair almost as shaggy as hers, but ink black _(like another brother,_ a voice whispered, _a brother lost)._ He held something in his hand and as the sky gleamed its red and purple, he raised it above her head until the iron shone dully.

***

And somewhere, the girl woke, breaths tumbling out of her mouth, hands reaching for the sword at her side. “Just a dream,” she whispered, and the words echoed back at her. _Just a dream._


	4. Chapter 4

She doesn’t come back after slashing at him, not for weeks it seems. He doesn’t care, doesn’t care, doesn’t care (he thinks if he says it enough, it will become true) (it never does). The hammer becomes fused with his arm, and he squeezes the sun for all she’s worth, hammering the steel until it’s not so much singing as screaming, as howling. (but he doesn’t care, doesn’t care, doesn’t care). 

The sun has set by the time he sets down the hammer, flexing his stiff fingers, the shadows deepening around him, when he hears the footsteps.

He whirls, and there she is, this winter wolf that’s been haunting him. She holds out a wineskin, and he notes that her sword is tucked against her hip.

***

They drink in silence, but it’s enough, somehow. He glances at her from time to time as they sit, biting back the words that threaten to push past his wine-stained lips as his gaze roams over the freckles dotting the bridge of her nose, the unruly tangles of her hair, the way her eyes seem to dance when the moonlight hits them. Her sword’s still tucked up against her and she stretches out on the grass, the sparse light turning her into a mess of planes and angles. He looks at her, and tips his head back to finish off the wine, heart hammering away in his chest. It’s not just words he wants, he realizes suddenly, the wineskin empty and hard in his hand. It’s everything he wants, until it seems to swallow him up right there, leaving nothing but darkness. 

But he doesn’t care, doesn’t care, doesn’t care.


	5. Chapter 5

She stayed away for a few days, skirting even the shadows. Her wolf dream stayed with her, and whenever she closed her eyes, all she could see was that dark figure, the hammer in his hand outlined against the angry sky. _It doesn’t mean anything,_ she told herself, _I have dreams like that all the time, and they never mean anything._ She tried to put it out of her mind, tried to shove it away, but a voice whispered, _never like that you don’t._

With a groan, she pushed herself up, grabbing her sword and danced underneath the trees, the metal glinting with dappled sunlight. _Wolves don’t get scared,_ she thought, slashing at an invisible enemy.

***

She stayed away for a few days, but she found her way back. She’d brought a wineskin along, and the feel of it in her hands was heavy, the wine sloshing against the sides as she walked. _I’m not going to apologize, I’m not. He was my pack and he left._

***

It didn’t take long before she was drunk. She’d never been drunk before, not truly, and her head felt strange as she stretched out underneath the night sky. _It feels like a fire’s burning through my veins,_ she mused, eyes turned upwards.

***

It didn’t take long before they were kissing, either. He’d opened his mouth, to object, she thought, but the last thing she wanted was his stupid words ruining this. Her mouth fell on his, and he tasted like wine, like summer, and her tongue pushed in, dancing with his. He grinned into the kiss, moved his hand up to cup her face, and she shoved them away. She wasn’t some fragile thing that could break; she was a _wolf._ She pushed his hands down to her hips and bit at his mouth, knotting her fingers in his black hair, scraping her nails across his scalp. Her eyes opened and she stared at him a moment before sliding off him, kicking the wineskin into a rock as she turned and walked away again, falling in step with the shadows dancing at the forest’s edge.

_Everyone always leaves, in the end._

Maybe this time she would be the one to leave first.


	6. Chapter 6

She finished another wineskin by herself, nestled in the crook of some tree. She drank until it felt like the fire was surging through her, until she was like to burn up and leave behind only a pile of ashes. _They’d get blown away, and then no one would be able to find me._ The words gave her a hollow feeling, and she closed her eyes against it. _And I’d never get back to Winterfell. And Jon will never muss my hair and call me little sister again._

_It doesn’t matter. Everyone’s dead. Everyone died, in the end._

She didn’t know that for certain though; all the smallfolk she had asked scoffed at her, telling her that the games the northmen played didn’t matter to them when there were fields to be planted, buildings to raise, lives to live. But she knew they had all died, she could feel it.

Her eyes closed again, and she tried to call back the way the stones at Winterfell burned if you left your hand on them for too long, or the way Sansa had laughed when Robb pelted Jon with snowballs. She tried to remember her mother working a brush through her hair and sighing, or how her father’s eyes would soften whenever he looked at her. Something deep in her snapped when she couldn’t, when she could only remember pictures, like memories of another live, of a dream fast fleeting.

_Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid._

***

Her hands found the hilt of her sword and she lurched to her feet, cutting at the air. This sword was heavier than the last, broader of blade, and _sharper._ Another sword flashed into her mind, a sword she had childishly called Needle, and she slashed harder.

This new sword didn’t have a name, not yet, not ever.

_A nameless sword for a nameless girl._


	7. Chapter 7

He’s a mess, afterwards. He tangles his fingers in his hair, drags his knuckles across his eyes _(still dry,_ he thinks, but he’s not surprised, not really; he stopped shedding tears for wolf girls long ago). Jeyne notices, he can tell, and how could she not? She doesn’t say anything, but he can see the way her eyes harden when she looks at him, the way the lines around her mouth deepen. He drowns himself in work again, the sun itching at his skin, pounding at the steel until he can forget the way Arya looked at him before she left. But he can’t forget, not even the hammer can beat that image from his mind, and he drowns some more, until his lungs are screaming out for air.

***

He’s not sleeping well. He’d never slept well, even after the fighting was done, even after he got a bed in place of the hard ground. _A child of war,_ he thinks, twisting the sheets until his fingers are throbbing, but he hasn’t been a child for a long time now, if he ever was. _A child of war,_ something in him echoes again, and he closes his eyes, falling fitfully into sleep, hoping his dreams are colored by Arya, and hoping they’re not.

***

She comes back, eventually. He’s lost track of the time, not sure how many days have stretched, thin and brittle, between the kiss and now. He turns and sees her, edging out of the shadows, sword in hands, and if he looks closer (and he does, he drinks in the sight of her, staring at her until she no longer seems real), he can see her hands shaking, the hollowed look haunting her eyes.

***

“I missed you,” he says, and she doesn’t answer, only drops the sword.


	8. Chapter 8

He gave her his bed.

He wasn’t sure where she had been sleeping, but he had an idea, so he gave her his bed, biting the inside of his cheek as she looked at him uncertainly, hand on the hilt of her sword, always on the hilt of her sword.

_We used to share a patch of ground,_ he remembered suddenly, _or a bed, when there was a bed to be had._ His mouth opened, to make a jape about it, perhaps, the distance between them now, but he stopped himself. It was different now, _she_ was different now, harder, almost, and hollowed. _She’s not a little girl anymore,_ he thought. And then, unbidden, _if she ever was._ And somewhere something inside him whispered, _a child of war._

***

Jeyne wasn’t pleased. _Another mouth to feed,_ her eyes seemed to say when she turned them on him, _another mouth to feed, and a useless one at that._ He looked back at her, met her steady gaze, tried to tell her that it was different, that it was _Arya,_ but he didn’t know how to do that without words (he didn’t know how to do that with words either, if he was being honest with himself).

_But it’s different,_ he told himself when Jeyne wasn’t looking, when Arya wasn’t looking. _It’s Arya._

***

They traded words under the cover of darkness, whispered secrets floating across the crumpled sheets (except they weren’t secrets, not really, but it was easier if they told themselves they were). There was a careful space between them, a path for the moonlight to creep up, but he could still feel the heat of her and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from reaching out and touching her (his cheek was getting raw but he scarcely noticed these days).

***

“I went to Braavos,” she murmured one night, eyes pointed towards the ceiling.

“I stayed here,” he offered in return.

“I’ve killed people,” she told him another night, chewing on her bottom lip.

“So have I,” he answered, thinking _we all have, it was a war,_ failing to notice the haunted look that passed over her face as she turned away.

***

One night, she said nothing, only looked up at the ceiling with hard eyes.

“I missed you,” he whispered, thinking _I still miss you._

She didn’t reply, only turned over and went to sleep.

***

When he woke in the morning, she was gone.


	9. Chapter 9

The ground under her feet was hard, and she wanted to stop, wanted to collapse and rest, or scream, or _hit_ something, but she didn’t. She kept going, her feet pounding the dirt and grass, her chest tightening and tightening until she felt like she was going to run out of air.

_It’s not fair,_ something in her screamed. _It’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair._

She pulled her sword out and slashed at the words, cutting them into pieces until only the air remained. She sheathed her sword slowly, the sound scraping through the sudden silence, and she wanted to cry.

_Wolves don’t cry_ , she thought, the words a growl ripping through her, and she turned and kept walking until she could feel nothing at all.

***

Jeyne had been furious, and he couldn’t blame her. “You’re just going to take off because of some _girl?_ Bed her or don’t, but don’t go running out after her, not when you’ve a place here,” she had said, eyes burning into his.

“I have to do this,” was all he could say back, looking away.

He was gone within the hour, the inn disappearing behind him (he never looked back though, only forward, eyes strained and searching), boots scuffing patterns into the dirt.

_We walked this road together once,_ he thought, _or would have, if we’d made it this far._ It was almost a joke, him chasing Arya down the road they would have walked together if things had been different. _But they weren’t. There was the war, and Harrenhal, and the Brothers, and everything else besides,_ he told himself, thinking of how Arya’s face had screwed up when he joined the Brothers. _I did it for you,_ he thought, shoulders shrugging.

(But had he? It was hard to remember, the war colored everything black, but he knew that when he had knelt and the steel touched his shoulders, it hadn’t been Arya flashing through his mind)

He sighed, turning north , the road wearing thin under his feet, and kept walking until the last rays of sun were vanished from the earth.


	10. Chapter 10

She didn’t remember falling asleep.

In all fairness, she had been bone-tired, working to put as many leagues between her and Gendry as she could before nightfall (but she didn’t think his name, wouldn’t think his name, just kept repeating _it’s not fair_ until the words blurred in her mind). She had stopped at an abandoned godswood _(could a godswood be abandoned?_ she wondered, thinking of the godswood at Winterfell, wondering if the wind sounded as empty when it whispered through the leaves up north), the ridges of the weirwood digging into her back. Her fingers had run down the hilt of her sword, wondering if she should give it a name, wondering if she should give herself a name again.

She didn’t remember closing her eyes, but when they opened again, they were brighter, and she was running on four legs.

***

A wolf was howling, and the sound cut her to the bone. Her ears pricked up at the sound, she _knew_ that howl, but she hadn’t heard it in so long. _But he’s dead,_ the girl thought, the words a murmur, _he’s dead dead dead._ The wolf shook off the words; she knew her brother wasn’t dead, she could _hear_ him.

More voices joined her brother’s, and she knew them all. A grey brother padding restlessly in a dark cave, leaves strewn by his paws. Roots were rising out of the ground, and mushrooms too, and her brother knelt and worried at them with his teeth until a boy’s voice floated out from amidst the brambles. A black brother fighting something bigger than him, always fighting, growls ripped from his throat, low and angry. A flash of red eyes, the white fur lost in the snow, and she could see flames dancing in the background, could almost _feel_ their heat.

She tipped her head back and howled with them, and behind her, her other brothers did the same, their voices rising and falling, joined by a single thread.

***

_But he’s dead, they’re all dead,_ the girl thought, curling up into a ball as the leaves rustled above her. _They’re all dead._

She was shaking, she realized, but she didn’t know how to stop it, couldn’t stop it. Sobs racked her body, violent and silent, and her mouth twisted as she tried to stop.

_Arya,_ the leaves whispered. _Arya Arya Arya._


End file.
